To be fair though, it -usually- picks up 99% of it with no issues and no external drivers needed. Its usually the nicknacks like unheard of webcams, dodgy wireless cards etc that cause the most problems IME. I usually just check the hardware chart and go out and buy a compatable one (small price to pay) rather than trying to hack around. As for Dells, Ubuntu picks up everything out of the box. I know this because the company i work IT support for use the whole range except inspiron (and a few HP/Compaq & IBMs) and have tried the liveCD on all the models to see how it runs and we use it for certain recovery stuff.
As for video cards, the days of the Xsession bluscreen is now over in ubuntu as it has both a vesa failsafe mode incase of problems as well as the start in safe graphics mode as before.
The new 3rd party restricted drivers from ATI and Nvidia are much better than just 1 year ago and seem to setup all the HW acceleration etc with no fuss.
As for video cards, the days of the Xsession bluscreen is now over in ubuntu as it has both a vesa failsafe mode incase of problems as well as the start in safe graphics mode as before.
The new 3rd party restricted drivers from ATI and Nvidia are much better than just 1 year ago and seem to setup all the HW acceleration etc with no fuss.